Local Biking Advocate Weighs In On Bridge Closure

With the structural warning signs and intra-state political wrangling years in the making, last month’s Memorial Bridge closure wasn’t exactly shocking.

But with even the most optimistic estimates for replacement construction set at no earlier than 2014, the challenges faced by Seacoast residents are no less apparent. Not the least of which involve the economic implications for downtown Kittery, which relies on the 80-year-old bridge for much of its traffic.

Still, just a quick weekend walk around the bridge’s Portsmouth base revealed a population eager to take advantage of the opportunity to experience the connection anew. John Spencer, a Portsmouth resident who works in Dover, has already noticed a significant uptick in the number of people crossing the bridge by means other than vehicular.

“You’d expect there to be more people than usual, being tourist season, but even compared to summers in the past, the level of foot and bike traffic has already grown,” said Spencer. “Hopefully that means Badgers Island and Kittery Foreside getting more visitors.”

While much of last weekend’s foot traffic could be attributed to various happenings in and around Prescott Park, those who took the leisurely detour into Maine’s oldest town did so devoid of the kind of solemnity one would expect of a population that had just lost a cultural – and commercial – monument.

Or maybe it just hasn’t hit home yet.

For his part, Josh Pierce is a little more ambiguous. Pierce, who helps run the popular Papa Wheelies bicycle shop on Islington Street, certainly hopes the bridge closure results in more customers through the door. At the same time, he’s also well aware of the pitfalls that a closed bridge – now temporarily open to pedestrian traffic – will pose once permanently closed.  

Last week, Pierce attended a meeting conducted by the Maine Department of Transportation and hosted by the Greater York Chamber of Commerce at the Kittery Town Hall. According to Pierce, the meeting had a dual purpose: to allow Kittery and York businesses the opportunity to air their concerns regarding the decrease in vehicle traffic across the bridge; as well as to discuss the plan of action going forward.

“There’s obviously a lot of concern from Kittery and York about the bridge being closed, a lot of talk about signage,” notes Pierce, a Portsmouth resident who actually rode his bike to the event. “That said, the mood of the meeting was more positive than some of the public meetings have been over the years.”

While Pierce is confident that the bridge’s permanent closure to car traffic will help speed up the reconstruction process, he’s quick to point out – as were many at last week’s York meeting – that neither Memorial Bridge, nor the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, currently allow biking, unless the riders walk their charges across.

Truth be told, Pierce has been intimately involved with the bridge replacement’s often dramatic proceedings for the past two years. As the President of Seacoast Area Bike Routes (SABR), Pierce – along with other local business and community leaders – was asked to be a part of a panel that would offer suggestions as to what the future Memorial Bridge should look like.

“Most people don’t know that the next fastest legal route on bike is 27 miles, north through Dover and then south back into Kittery,” Pierce points out. “One of the ideas that’s being floated out right now is to re-stripe the lanes on the Long bridge and open it up to cyclists, so hopefully that ends up happening as an interim fix.”

Bikers aren’t the only ones hoping so. Indeed, once Memorial Bridge is permanently decommissioned – most estimates have it being shut or torn down by late winter at the latest – not even pedestrians on foot will be permitted to cross.

Assuming completion by the early 2014 target date, that could mean a full 18 months of no bridge at all.

Still, Pierce still holds out hope that the project will progress in a timely fashion. “I’m hoping the construction timeline might be speeded up by the bridge not being open to vehicle traffic,” he says.

When it comes to a project of this magnitude, the typical approach is to conduct design, bidding, and construction in three distinct phases. But because the bidding, design and construction will likely be undertaken by a single company, many, including Pierce, think the project will end up being completed much more quickly than it would have been using a traditional approach – perhaps by as much as a year.

According to Pierce, when all is said and done, the new bridge will likely include wider sidewalks, shoulders, sturdier guard rails, as well as a solid deck span, meaning a much more comfortable ride for bikers.

“However it happens, there’s no doubt what we’ll have is going to be a marked improvement over what we had before,” says Pierce. “Now it’s just a matter of getting it done."